FIRST REACTOR DISASTER IN THE U.S.

I know that most people think that the first nuclear accident at a power plant was Three Mile Island, in 1979, but I was watching the history channel and found out the real first accident happened in an experimental nuclear power plant, located in Idaho. In an almost prophetic incident, at the reactor, 3 crewmen had just come off a Holiday break and were supposed to do regular tests before starting up the reactor. One of their assignments was to reconnect the automatic extraction device to the central control rod. It only needed to be pulled out 3 inches to make the reconnection. After the accident, it appeared that the rod was pulled out 20 inches. Because it was pulled out so far, it sped up the nuclear reaction in the core, heating the water surrounding the core vessel to the point that the vessel shot up like a rocket, hiting the top of the reactor room before crashing down.

What neither this article I cited or others I found, told the story like they did on the History Channel, that the fact the fire alarm at the reactor had gone off three times that day, each time the fire squad assigned to the reactor showed up to find nothing wrong until the 3rd and final time. When they arrived, they found the place dark and as they entered, their radiation alarms went off. They called for back up, which went in and recovered the 3 men, two were dead immediately, one lasted just a little longer. They were so radioactive, their bodies were buried in lead coffins along with the debris from the reactor.

Since this accident, all control rods are pulled by a computerized system that prevents them from being pulled too far out.

In Three Mile Island, it was a faulty pressure indicator that caused the operator to release too much cooling water from the core, causing a release of radiation into the air.

Chernobyl was the result of engineers running low power level tests, but the temperature around the core increased so rapidly that the explosion blew the top off the reactor room. Once air could get in, a fire resulted, causing more radiation to be released.

Although they couldn't predict a faulty pressure indicator, more nuclear accidents have been the result of human error.